


What the Water Gave Me

by Psuedo_sweetheart



Category: When The Night Comes (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, It's not graphic or prolonged, May Or May Not Be Continued, Selkies, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28473972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Psuedo_sweetheart/pseuds/Psuedo_sweetheart
Summary: "Earlier in the night, Finn had held a paintbrush in his hand for the first time in centuries.He’d known exactly what he wanted to paint, the perforated pencil lines on the rough canvas an echo of a person he’d drawn in pieces and parts for centuries.Finn never dared to draw Gabriel’s face in all it’s splendid entirety before now.  He knew he couldn’t endure such a sight.  Not until he stopped holding onto the coattails of the man who killed him.  But it seemed even with Leviathan Kazimir dead, Finn couldn’t put his life, or himself, back together."
Relationships: Finnegan Kazimir/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 3





	What the Water Gave Me

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Florence + The Machine

Finn had decided. He would keep lying here on the top of the ocean, and let the tide gently pull him from the rooted earth with all it’s horrors that lie just beyond the sand. He would dream as the waves gently rocked him as his mother surely had, centuries ago. (He can’t remember her name or face anymore, but he remembers that she loved him in the few years they had before she left him, the same way everyone with a beating heart eventually leaves him.) 

He would smile as the moon set, a thread of golden light on the eastern horizon the last thing he’d ever see. It would be breathtaking.

Ha! Breathtaking… get it? Not that Finn really needs breaths anymore, but well, he never could resist a good joke. Or a bad one. 

Finn opens his eyes, but he doesn’t see what’s in front of them. The freckled back of the night, muraled with stories that humanity tells itself about warriors defeating monsters, and dancing angels, and the dippers that they use to slake their thirst before the sun comes to put them to bed. 

Instead, he sees faces, some of them so muddied with time that they look like they were painted by someone going blind, others so full of meticulous, loving detail, he can almost believe he’ll never forget their features.

Almost.

Earlier in the night, Finn had held a paintbrush in his hand for the first time in centuries. 

He’d known exactly what he wanted to paint, the perforated pencil lines on the rough canvas an echo of a person he’d drawn in pieces and parts for centuries. 

Finn never dared to draw Gabriel’s face in all it’s splendid entirety before now. He knew he couldn’t endure such a sight. Not until he stopped holding onto the coattails of the man who killed him. But it seemed even with Leviathan Kazimir dead, Finn couldn’t put his life, or himself, back together. 

Earlier in the night, Finn had held a paintbrush in his hand for the first time in centuries, looked down the twenty two shades of brown he’d made, then at the canvas where two brown eyes he didn’t recognize stared out at him, and realized he couldn’t remember which shade Gabriel’s eyes had been. 

Desperately, he tried to remember what he’d compared them to, because surely he had done that. He’s a poetic soul, surely he’d told his childhood sweetheart, romantic lines about his eyes reminding him of cocoa or caramels, or perhaps bronze buttons, or cinnamon.

But the human he’d been, who’d loved Gabriel with all his heart, hadn’t been a poetic soul. He’d been an illiterate serf, whose back breaking labor was made bearable, by the beautiful boy he shared it with. He hadn’t paused to think up pretty words to describe Gabriel when he could instead be kissing him, or dancing with him, or making dinner with him, before they had to rest so they could stand under the demands of the sunrise. 

Poetry is something Finn learned later in life, and now it is too late. Now, it does not matter, because there are no pretty words that can dress up the time and trauma ravaged void places, scattered across his mind. There are only lifeless, half finished paintings, and twenty two shades of brown, one of which may, or may not be right, and a bone deep fear that things he does remember are just the fabrications of a desperate, lonely, man.

The rhythmic waves of the ocean, sound like a heart beat whooshing in his ears. Laying here, Finn can almost believe it’s his heart, beating out a steady, comforting, rhythm; proof of life.

His chest hurts. But not with the same aching emptiness and silence it usually does. 

With the unwavering heart beat of the earth, pulsing in his ears, Finn remembers that hearts don’t need perfect memories in order to feel emotion. 

If he remembered every single detail of Gabriel’s entire body, down to the very last freckle, it would be meaningless if Finn didn’t remember the way he felt about him. Because, while he may be out of practice, he does feel things, heart beat or no. 

Water sprays up around Finn, as he abruptly flails in utterly graceless terror, arms trying to haul him back to land without any input from the rest of his brain. He gasps in instinctual, unnecessary, breaths, as the desire to live strikes him like a bolt of lightning. 

Brushing the dripping salt water from his eyes, Finn takes a moment to compose himself before scanning the horizon for a hint of land. There’s nothing but featureless water stretching out to the sky every direction he turns, and somehow he feels colder. 

He looks up expecting to find stars, only to find puffy clouds, mottled a muted blue-grey in the moonlight. 

“Come on!” he yells into the darkness, splashing his arms in futile frustration. 

He’s seriously considering more yelling and splashing, when a noise distracts him from his looming breakdown.

A hoarse, barking, sound echoes across the water, and Finn swivels his head around, trying to decide which direction it came from.

“Sounded like a seal,” he mutters to himself. “Probably not great at giving directions, if I’m at all honest, which considering the circumstances-” 

A sleek, grey, head, with two, huge, black eyes slides soundlessly out of the water right next to him, and Finn holds as still as he can manage in the lapping water. 

“Hello there,” he greets the seal, with a wide, wondering, smile. “Aren’t you a welcome sight.”

The seal barks again, flipping onto its back as it swims around him, showing off it’s silver belly, as it waves its flipper. 

Finn’s lips slip into something a little more startled than a smile, brows furrowing as he turns in the water to keep the creature in his sights.

“You… are a bit more responsive than I expected.”

The seal just blinks at him with liquid, obsidian eyes, as it bobs an arm length away. 

Finn sighs, and glances up at the sky again, hoping that perhaps some of the clouds have dissipated. When he looks back, the seal is so close, he can see his reflection in its eyes for a brief moment before it flings itself backward in a spectacular, and completely unnecessary splash of water, a rhythmic warbling noise that didn’t sound unlike a laugh, audible over the cascading water.

Finn has to swim to keep from being rolled over in the resulting wave. He sputters out a laugh, flicking his hair out of his eyes, so he doesn’t miss anything else his new friend wants to show him. 

Despite the direness of his situation, he can’t help but be charmed. 

“Ah, so you are a remarkable example of your species, aren’t you? I thought so.”

The emphatic nod followed by a distinctively, shown off, body wriggle he receives in response, has his mouth hanging open again, and Finn chuckles, shaking his head.

“I suppose it’s ironic that I’m surprised, considering I’ve been considered a fantastical creature myself,” he tells it.

It makes the same laughing, warbling, tune it had before and Finn grins. 

“Well, my sleek, new friend, do you happen to know which way the closest shore is? Sunrise is not kind to creatures such as I, you see.”

The seal cocks its head to the side and studies him for a moment before diving back into the water, with nary a splash, as Finn knew it was capable of. 

He looks around, trying to spot it farther out, and hoping he’s not in fact ‘gone off the deep end,’ in more ways than one. 

A hoarse, bark, like the one he’d first heard sounds, and he spots the seal to his left, immediately swimming after it. 

The seal is delighted that he can do more than keep himself afloat, circling underneath and around him, with a regular chorus of noises. Finn focuses on cutting through the waves at a steady clip, ignoring the sting of the salt water as he glances at the sky every few minutes. 

As the night wears on, the moon starts to descend from its zenith, looking like nothing more than an opalescent axe blade and Finn has never been so glad to not be alone. He’s swimming against the tide, and far past beginning to be tired, his last meal weeks behind him. The formerly smooth and limber movements of his body, start to stutter as his arms tremble too much to cut through the water with precision. 

The seal circles closer to him with a concerned trill, once even close enough that Finn can feel the warm slide of fin along his side, as if the creature were egging him on with encouragement.

Finally, Finn stops. He has to stop. If he were human, he’d be vomiting right now, but he isn’t, so he can’t. He thinks he can make out a strip of land in the distance, but one glance at the sky, now of course, nearly cloudless, tells him he won’t make it in time. 

“Even if I keep going, I won’t get past the surf zone in this state,” he tells his companion.

The surf zone will have some of the strongest currents, and he can feel the wind picking up at his back. 

Finn closes his eyes, and lays back in the water, wishing he could feel alive before dying. He wants to gasp in life giving air, to have his heart race, to shiver, and his teeth to chatter… something. Something other than his tired mind, to urge his tired body onward, toward the possibility of another night.

There’s a strange creaking noise, and a velvety nose bumps his elbow. Finn looks over at his friend, smiling into their black moon eyes. The seal bumps his arm again, urging him onward. 

“You think I can make it?” he asks, an exhausted, lopsided smile, curving his lips.

The seal eyes the horizon, then cocks its head. It makes a chirp, then disappears under the waves. 

Finn waits, then waits some more. Finally, he sighs, and presses forward, arms slapping the water in a distinctly exhausted manner, legs kicking furiously against the weight of the water, then less so, then even less so, till he kicks once more, and then simply… cannot, complete the movement again. 

The moon is low on the horizon, and Finn can feel a slight, uncomfortable buzz of the first rays of morning on his skin. It isn’t enough to kill him, not yet. Not enough until the sun itself peeks over the horizon.

He’s too tired to feel much as he sinks beneath the waves. He knows he won’t sink fast enough and far enough for him to survive, but it doesn’t seem important at the moment. 

The sea’s cold, embrace, is almost a comfort, particularly with that steady, pulse of the surf in his ears, reminding him again of a heart beat. He’s going to die in the womb of the world, and he thinks that at least his death is poetic. 

Peaceful, if cold, and he is used to the cold. 

The water in his lungs tugs him downward, but the buzz on his skin grows stronger, almost feeling hot, but mostly feeling like thousands of stinging insects under his skin. Finn tries to panic, to tell himself to move, but his body is like a marionette with its strings cut, and all he can manage is to weakly bat at the water, feeling it uselessly buffeting between his fingers.

Just when he finally, completely, gives up, there’s a tug on his trouser leg, and Finn is sailing through the water at a break neck speed, down and down, until his body starts to feel not just heavy, but crushed. He thinks he hears his ribs creaking, but then there’s a flash of movement, and he’s distracted from the pain by the silver belly of his seal friend as they continue to pull him toward…

A shipwreck. 

If he had the strength, Finn would laugh. 

There is no way this is his life, and he can’t decide if sheltering in a shipwreck miles underwater is going to be something he can spin stories about later, or if it’s going to sit quietly as far back in his mind as he can shove it, with all his other nightmares. Then, he’s in the bowels of the ship, and the relief is instantaneous. The awful, penetrating, buzzing, sensation of the first rays of sunlight before the sun hits the sky, finally receding. 

His friend saved his life, in the nick of time. 

The seal takes him farther in, till they reach the cell block, and there they tug him inside a cell that has its door barely hanging on by one hinge. At first, Finn is confused as to why the seal brought him to this part, or if it was a fluke, till they let him go, and he sinks till he reaches the bars that used to be a wall and are now a floor, but a floor Finn can still see and move while being pressed against.

The seal goes into the adjoining cell and peers up at his face. 

If they were capable of grinning, Finn is sure they would be. As it is, they bark happily, as they gambol about the cell, wriggling and acting the acrobat. Finn does laugh this time, bubbles of water, bursting from his lips as he does. Ejecting some of the water from his lungs makes him more buoyant, and the pressure of the water feel more intense, so he breathes water back in, ignoring the sting of salt in his throat and nasal cavity.

The fact that his body doesn’t rebel this act of apparent suicide feels like the twisting of a blade that’s been lodged in his chest for centuries, but the bright, happy, eyes of his savior ease the ache soon enough. 

Through his haze of exhaustion, a word pops into his head.

‘Selkie.’

A seal that can turn into a human. The legends have differing ‘facts’ about selkies, the only consistent one is that selkies shed their skin to transform, and in order to return to the sea, they must retrieve their skin first. There are awful tales of people stealing selkie coats. He wonders if that is what his friend is, or if sentient seals are just a thing. Perhaps both exist, he doesn’t see why not. 

He’s still considering this when the seal smacks him in the face with their flipper. Finn moves his head out of range, giving the seal as much of a confused expression as he can. It’s so cold, he can barely move his limbs, much less the small muscles of his face. 

The seal makes their trilling warble that sounds like a laugh again, then sticks their flipper through the bars, pressing the tip directly against his mouth. For some reason this makes Finn sure his friend is a selkie, rather than a particularly intelligent and sassy seal. It seems to him, this creature would have had to spent time among humans to know about their predators, the vampire. But then again, it’s not like he knows anything about underwater society.

Inwardly, he shudders over the thought of vampires that roam the deepest bowels of the earth. 

The fin pressed against his lips flutters back and forth across them, and Finn opens his mouth, pulling back his lips and trying not to make it look menacing. He just wants them to remind them that if he does as they seem to want him to, it’s going to hurt. The selkie, immediately shoves its fin into his mouth and Finn makes a choked laughing noise, trying not to let the water leave his lungs as he laughs at their audacity. 

This creature is so full of kindness, he can barely stand to look at them anymore, like even touching them with his gaze will tarnish them. But he makes himself, because they’re saving his life twice over again. Not only will he be able to finish swimming home after this (and after the sun sets), but he won’t have to track down a human while delirious with exhaustion and hunger, doing who knows what to them in such a state. His new friend deserves his utmost respect. 

Finn bites down, as gently as he can with his instincts roaring in his ears. The selkie doesn’t make a sound as his fangs pierce it’s flesh. 

The first sip of blood, is so heady, Finn has to simply hold it in his mouth, heedless of the blood seeping away past his lips, looking like tiny red rivers, before fading into the sea. The selkie, and he is now entirely certain, they are a selkie, has blood unlike any he’s ever tasted before.

He expected the tang of salt, (and the possibility of a fishy aftertaste, if he’s entirely honest) but it’s so much more. It’s the waves crashing against the shore, it’s the freedom of swimming with nowhere to be or to go, it’s whooping aloud, it’s sunlight filtering through the water, it’s the wind relentlessly wiping away thoughts and worries till there’s nothing but the wild joy of existence.

Finn ignores his body’s desperate pleas for more, his gaze boring into the… 

‘Morgan.’

The name seems to simply coalesce in his mind’s eye. Not wanting to waste a single drop more blood, Finn smiles at them, in his head. 

The selkie bobs, with a happy trill. 

‘Finn,’ he tells her. 

The selkie tilts their head, ‘Fin?’ 

They punctuate the question with a little wave with the fin he doesn’t currently have his fangs stuck in.

He smiles again, ‘You can call me Finnegan, if you prefer.’

‘I like Finn better. It’s funny.’

He has to press his lips down on their fin to keep from laughing out loud and wasting more of his meal. Their conversation ceases as he focuses on regaining his strength, although only a few swallows later Finn has already reached that contented phase of satiation, and he licks the wounds he made till he feels them start to close. 

When he refocuses, he’s startled to find his eyes glowing so brightly, he can see the glow like twin lantern lights.

He grins, heedless of the salty water, and the selkie does too, warbling as they wriggle around the cell. Finn watches them, eyes sparkling with mirth, as well as magic. He’s just about to speak again, when a strange noise reaches his ears. 

It’s very easy to hear under water, although difficult for him to tell which direction noises come from. He goes still, cocking his head. If he had to guess, he’d say it’s the sound of something big swimming closer, but he isn’t sure. 

He turns to his companion.

‘Do you hear that?’

Morgan mimics him, going still and tilting their head. Their demeanor changes in an instant, eyes flaring wide as their lithe body goes stiff.

‘Shark. Smells blood.’ They glance at him, ‘I’ll lead it away.’

Finn opens his mouth to protest, but Morgan interrupts.

‘Don’t forget the sun is out.’

Morgan swims up to the bars where he’s still hanging like laundry left out to dry, except the opposite in every way. They nuzzle his face, their whiskers tickling his ear. If his guilt and worry weren’t twisting his thoughts into something sour and poisonous, Finn would laugh. 

‘Will you do me a favor, Finn?’

‘Anything,’ he says, meaning in entirely.

A small, bubble of amusement from the selkie, and then, ‘Now I want to ask for something ridiculous, but alas, all I want, is for you to remember me.’ 

Morgan flutters their fins in a gesture Finn would categorize as nervous. 

‘It sounds lonely, to be forgotten.’ 

Their snout makes a smile difficult to recognize, but Finn sees it anyway, then, before he can respond, they dart out of the cell block, all stiffness gone from their movements, darting through the debris filled room, their form fading until he can only see a shadow of them. A ringing bark, reaches his ears, followed by a chorus of taunting noises.

Finn closes his eyes, pressing his forehead hard against the bars underneath him as a wave of bitterness washes over him. For all his supposed strength, he’s still so powerless when it matters. He wonders briefly how many people have died over the centuries helping him, and then shies away from the thought, unable to actually think on it.   
  
All he can do is wait. Time seems particularly endless when he’s alone. Stretched out and thinning, till reality shatters and all that’s left is him, and he’d do anything to get away from himself. 

His ears flick at every noise. But all there is small, fish, who flit around him like he’s a new, large, piece of furniture. 

Hours pass, or he supposes they do. 

The water pressing on him from all sides starts to feel suffocating, even for him, as it gets colder. Finally, he can stand it no more. He’s fairly certain the sun has gone down, even though no light changes from deep in the bowels of the ship. Despite the cold, he can move his limbs easily now that his strength has returned. 

He swims around the ship, then does so again farther away, before surfacing. He coughs up his lungful of water before sucking in a deep unnecessary breath of fresh air, treading water as he looks around. The shore isn’t so very far, and he doesn’t see any small, floating bodies, although… 

He winces, a hungry shark, probably… he quickly sets that thought aside and deciding to check once more, dives again.   
  
Finn searches till the moon is high, heading toward the shore and his responsibilities with reluctance. Once his feet hit solid ground again for the first time in a full night, he falls to his knees, letting the surf rush underneath him in a hissing, foaming, roar. 

Why did he lose everyone he wanted to keep? Why did he live on while those so much better than he is, die? 

Tilting his head back, Finn catches sight of the constellation Selenia. The moon-blessed warrior, who points sailors north with the bright, sparkling, tip of her sword. From there he traces the monster Selenia defeats every night, Craftian, and from there, the curled shape of the Seal, who Finn now wonders if is instead a selkie. 

He decides that if it wasn’t, it is now.

***

Finn stands on the shore, hands clenched into fists at his sides. He still pretends the rhythm of the rolling waves is his heartbeat, slow yes, but there. Slowly the tension eases from his shoulders, and his hands loosen till they hang loosely at his sides. 

He ended things with Ezra a month ago, and it’s been a long time since he’s been this miserable. He’s hoping he’ll see a certain friendly face out among the waves tonight. 

Morgan returned to the shores of Lunaris all in one piece, a few months after she saved Finn’s life. Or well, they caught each other a few months later. 

Finn had dipped right back into his depression after he thought she’d died, and then had yet another near death experience, this time saved by an angel that had hands, and feet and magic, all of which he’d used to set Finn on the path to redemption.

Finn is the one who’s chosen to walk the path though, and he’s more than glad that for the past few years, Morgan has been his little oasis in the midst of it all. She’s a breath of fresh air. 

Playful to a fault, she has no cares for anything but swimming, eating, and the home she lives in. Finn’s asked her questions about herself, and her life a few times, but she always just laughs and challenges him to a race (he always loses) or splashes water in his face and swims off, laughing that trilling, warble of hers. 

He lets her avoid her past. He knows what it’s like to rather do anything other than remember. Or perhaps she’s just the sort of person who never looks back, living in the now in a way Finn tries to mimic. 

He smiles, fangs glinting in the moonlight as he sees a small, grey, head bobbing out of the waves. This past month he’s barely seen her, and Finn quickly strips out of most of his clothes, (he went naked once, but Morgan laughed at his dick, and while he likes to think he’s thick skinned, it isn’t an experience he wants to repeat) and goes out to meet her. 

Finn’s smile wanes as he gets close. Morgan is still and quiet, letting the sea rock her instead of cutting through it or splashing him, no big, toothy, grin across her snout. 

“What’s wrong, Morgan?”

He reaches out slowly, and when she doesn’t shift away, pets her head. She’s still not gotten used to casual touch, but as long as he doesn’t surprise her, she likes it well enough, particularly when he rubs between her eyes. But tonight, he just pets down the back of her head, frowning in concern. Huge, eyes like polished obsidian marbles look up at him, and he brushes his thumb along the top of her snout. 

“You want to talk about it?”

She noses at his hand, and he goes back to petting her head as she drifts closer. 

“Do you need a hug?”

Morgan is such a creature of freedom, he’s never even tried to hug her before, but Finn thinks she might need an anchor tonight. She tilts her head at him, but then just dives under the water. He tries to keep her in sight, peering through the waves, his heart aching for her, catching sight of her, far closer to the shore than she usually goes. 

Finn hurries after her, brows furrowed. 

“Morgan,” he calls after her.

She doesn’t turn back, just keeps swimming till her chest hits the sand, then pulls herself farther up the shore with her fins. 

If Finn had a heart, it would be racing as he hauls ass towards land. Morgan’s never joined him on the beach. She isn’t built for navigating solid ground, and despite being a selkie, she’s never shown the slightest interest in a life outside the ocean. By the time he reaches her, she’s already transformed, her coat a grey puddle of fur at her side.

He stands soaking wet in the surf in just his underwear, staring at the plump, silver haired woman, sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest. 

“Would you put on some trousers? I don’t know how you put up with that thing hanging out all the time, but I can’t take you seriously if I can see it.”

She’s facing away from him, but he can see the corner of her mouth turned up in a smile, and Finn huffs out a laugh.

“Give me a moment, I’ll dress and salvage my pride.”

He’s more amused than anything, understanding that seals, and most marine creatures are built quite differently. It’s bitterly cold this time of year, and even his dick wishes it was sheltered inside his body whenever he braves the chill of the water. 

“I’m sure you have other things to be proud of,” Morgan responds, with a giggle in her voice.

“I’d like to think so.”

He slips into his trousers, tying the laces easily as he walks toward her, his shirt in his hand. He hands it to her, and she finally looks up at him. Big, ink dark, eyes, set in a round face, peers up at him. Finn doesn’t hide how pleased he is to see her human face, his smile wide and wondering. Deeply pigmented red lips, return his smile, and Finn can’t help his gaze catching on them. 

He keeps his eyes on her face as she slips the shirt on, not that it can cover much, and Morgan hasn’t transformed enough to be shy. 

She looks down the neckline of the shirt, frowning at her breasts. 

“I’m not sure about these things,” she says as she cups them in her hands, then lets them fall.

Biting his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, and still barely holding back a burst of laughter, Finn studiously keeps his gaze on her face. He licks the blood off his bottom lip, and she goes on.

“It’s the legs that are going to be the biggest challenge though,” she stretches out a short pair of legs, flexing her toes.

Finn plops down next to her, keeping his body language open and casual as he stretches out his own legs, and leans back on his arms.

“Well, if you need help, all you have to do is ask. I have a very steady pair of legs.”

She looks at said legs, stretched out next to hers, her frown deepening.

“Are females usually so much smaller than males, among the two legged animals?”

Finn grins rakishly, leaning back a little farther and bringing up one leg so that he’s splayed out to his best advantage.

“I’m just a exemplary example,” he tilts his chin in a teasing manner. 

“Does exemplary mean ridiculously tall?”

Morgan pokes his shoulder, nose crinkling and eyes squinting as she grins widely, showing off slightly elongated incisors. 

They’re within normal range for humans, but Finn still thinks it’s interesting. 

He laughs, giving Morgan a fond look, “You have no idea how happy I am to get to do this with you.”

“I’ve definitely made fun of you before,” she scoffs, tossing her head.

Her hair glints in the moonlight like it truly is made of silver. Hanging between her chin and shoulders in length, it has a bit of curl giving it a windblown look. Shaking his head, a fond smile still on his lips, Finn picks up a handful of sand, to keep his hands from reaching out to her like he would if she were in the shape he knows. 

“Don’t you think this is different?”

“Better?” she asks, her arms wrapping back around her legs, everything about her closing up tightly. 

She’s looking out to the dark sea, lips pressed into a thin line. Finn can imagine her questioning if she belongs here, wondering if in transforming her shape into something new, she’s transformed their relationship into something she doesn’t recognize. 

Finn shakes his head, “If I’m honest, I am more comfortable outside of water cold enough to make a corpse shiver, but the company is the best there is, regardless of the wrappings.”

She turns to look at him, staring intently as though searching for signs of the truth, and Finn stays still under her regard. Finally her posture softens, and she grins so wide, her eyes almost disappear as she flings herself at him.

“Finn!” she yells.

Finn has to drag his eyebrows down from his hairline before he can think to wrap his arms around her, but when he does, he sits up so that he can squeeze her as tight as she is him. She’s sitting on his lap, and she’s so soft, not to mention warm. Finn has a quick thought of how easy it would be to fall in love with her just because of how comfortable she is to hold in his arms. 

“Here I am,” he teases, as he sidesteps the thought, refocusing on the now.

Morgan sighs, resting her cheek against his bare chest. Finn loosens his hold on her, but doesn’t let go.

“Hugging is…” she pauses, humming as she ponders the word she wants. “Well, it’s far better than I expected. You always seemed to want to touch me, and I didn’t understand, but now I do.”

“Humans feel things differently than animals,” Finn explains, “luckily, vampires do as well.”

She makes a noise of agreement, and they lapse into a comfortable silence, letting the sound of the ocean waves take over. After a few minutes, Morgan starts to shiver, and cuddles closer. 

“Is getting cold another way humans feel things differently?” she grumbles.

Finn, rubs her back, “I’m afraid so. Do you want to go somewhere warmer?”

She shakes her head, and Finn rubs her arms vigorously trying to get her warm.

Morgan watches his ministrations closely, and Finn has to hold back another chuckle. Regardless of how adorable it seemed to him, he didn’t want her to feel silly for not knowing things considered basic knowledge to any other human. He wraps his arms back around her, bringing his legs up to help shield her from the wind. 

“Are you comfortable?” he asks.

“Very.”

A thrill of smug satisfaction goes through him, even though he knows it’s half ridiculous. They sit and listen to the surf again, and Finn smiles to himself, so grateful she’s here, closer than ever, and that she wants to be near him. 

After awhile the mood changes, and he’s reminded how Morgan had been when he first saw her earlier. He rubs his thumb back and forth against her arm in a comforting gesture. Finally, she breaks the silence.

“My grandmother died.”

Finn squeezes his eyes shut and holds her tighter, his hand coming up to cradle her head. 

“I’m so sorry, Morgan.”

“Selkies live a long time. She had a good life.”

He wonders what a long time means to a selkie. There’s tales of selkies being immortal, and others of them simply being long lived. But compared to the average seal, 50 years might be ‘a long time.’ 

“She was glad I had you, she didn’t want to leave me alone.”

“What’s her name?” Finn asks, wanting to know what to call this person Morgan loves and who’d loved her so well.

“Arianwen. She raised me, practically from a pup. Told me all our stories, worried about me when I did stupid things,” she laughs softly. 

“She sounds like a wonderful person. I’m sorry you lost her.”

Morgan buries her face against his chest, and for a moment Finn thinks she’s going to cry, as her shoulders go tense. But after a moment she relaxes into his hold again. 

“Will you take me somewhere warm now?” she murmurs.

“Of course,” Finn reassures her.

He stands to his feet, then pauses with Morgan still in his arms. Glancing down at her, he sees her eye lids drooping, and with a smile curling the corner of his mouth, Finn carries her home. 


End file.
